Starship!

[Peter B]

Maybe "Honest Mistake",  "Reasonable Excuse" or "Teething Problems"
Or if there's recriminations to be had "A Series Of Unlikely Explanations" or "Excuses And Accusations"

"Mistakes were made".

IIRC it's the title of a book (but perhaps not a Culture ship).

[smartcooky]

Musk gave it a 30% chance of full success, so I think that the first flight exceeded his expectations. He expects losses and failures, in fact he positively encourages them. SN9 is almost ready to go and up to SN15 are in various stages of construction.

Yeah, they probably expected to take 2-3 flights to get what they got from this one. That's at least a couple months of assembling, testing, and cleaning up prototypes.

And yes, it was done a year later than Elon hoped. It was also done with a much higher fidelity test article. In the meantime, they've already test fired vacuum-optimized and high-thrust versions of the engine that they weren't even planning to develop for the first orbital versions of Starship. Nobody's disappointed with the pace they're managing.

The airliner comparison makes no sense. This isn't an airliner trying for an altitude record.

Besides which, a new design of airliner on its first ever test flight goes nowhere near 41,000 ft.

You realise this is not the first flight of SS?

Do you realise that it was? The others you think were flights, were actually short hop tests of engined fuel tanks fitted with a thrust-puck to check hover stability and engine gimbaling control authority. This is the was the first test flight of SS complete with winglets, pitch over, belly flop and flip maneuver.

[Zakalwe]

As for it not going higher or faster than a commercial airliner, I've got to say "so what"? It's flown higher and faster than the SLS boondoggle. It also flew higher and faster than this thing....

You have completely missed my point.  People are crowing over this being a high altitude test, when it it isn't.  As fpor SLS, I am confident it will achieve orbit a lot sooner than this thing.

I'm not seeing much "crowing " over it being a high-altitude test. More that it was a test of a never-before-flown landing profile. I just think it was a shame that there wasn't a Roadster on it as a mass simulator.

SLS flying first? If, and that's a big if, it flies first then I'll be surprised if it flies more than once. Did you see the latest crock from the program? That it's going to take a year (!) to replace a failed power component in Orion? I nearly coughed a lung up laughing.

Also, show us on the doll where the South African billionaire touched you inappropriately. You sure are salty when it comes to Musk's projects! 

[Zakalwe]

Musk gave it a 30% chance of full success, so I think that the first flight exceeded his expectations. He expects losses and failures, in fact he positively encourages them. SN9 is almost ready to go and up to SN15 are in various stages of construction.

Yeah, they probably expected to take 2-3 flights to get what they got from this one. That's at least a couple months of assembling, testing, and cleaning up prototypes.

And yes, it was done a year later than Elon hoped. It was also done with a much higher fidelity test article. In the meantime, they've already test fired vacuum-optimized and high-thrust versions of the engine that they weren't even planning to develop for the first orbital versions of Starship. Nobody's disappointed with the pace they're managing.

The airliner comparison makes no sense. This isn't an airliner trying for an altitude record.

Besides which, a new design of airliner on its first ever test flight goes nowhere near 41,000 ft.

You realise this is not the first flight of SS?

Do you realise that it was? The others you think were flights, were actually short hop tests of engined fuel tanks fitted with a thrust-puck to check hover stability and engine gimbaling control authority. This is the was the first test flight of SS complete with winglets, pitch over, belly flop and flip maneuver.

Yeah, but they barely flew higher or farther than the original Wright Flyer so it sucks and can be ignored.

[smartcooky]

You have completely missed my point.  People are crowing over this being a high altitude test, when it it isn't.  As for SLS, I am confident it will achieve orbit a lot sooner than this thing.

I should hope so, its had a 5 year, 9 billion dollar head start!

Note that in September 2019 this flight was promised to be in October 2019.

At that time the flight was supposed to be to 18 km.  This has been gradually whittled down, first to 15 km then 12.5 km.

This flight was no higher or faster than a commercial airliner.

While useful data and experience would have been gained, the flight ended with the destruction of a testbed and the loss of three reusable engines.

You really have no idea of the concept of "testing" do you.

Here, perhaps this will help you to understand

"Over promising to this degree" is lying.  Knowingly stating that a test article with poorly constructed mockup fins and nose cone will fly to 18 km in two months is lying.  Saying that an orbital flight will happen with six months.  And most people believe it.

Remember when SLS was supposed to originally launch? Wasn't it late 2019? I guess they lied.
It's slipped (again) to April 2021 now, and I am confident they will miss that too, so they will have lied... again.
 

My understanding is that they reduced altitude to avoid having to deal with high level winds, which seems a reasonable precaution.  And for this test altitude only mattered to the degree they could test the belly flop. 

Maybe.  But was this announced at the time or is it after the event rationalisation?  Musk does a lot of that, see the rationalisation that the failure of the Mk1 SS (the samed one that was going to flyto 18 km in two months) during an initial tanking test.

The reduction to 12.5km was announced well ahead of time.

As for the engines, they’re chunking them out at a decent clip now.  The next prototype is already built and will be rolled to the pad next week, and the next flight could happen by early January.  There are at least six more prototypes in various stages of construction, so they have plenty of hardware to chew through as they start dialing this in.

At the rate they are destroying them, they need to.  Eleven test articles have been made to date.  Of these three have been retired, one never completed, one was subjected to destructive testing.  The remainder were destroyed.accidentally

Another term you fail to understannd.. Iterative Design Process

https://www.smartsheet.com/iterative-process-guide

I know you are a Musk/SpaceX-hater (you've made no effort to keep that a secret) but do you really have to go so far out of your way to find fault in everything they do?

[Zakalwe]

How many test flights has the SLS flown so far?
That'd be none. Zero. Zilch. Even with nearly a decade of development and billions of dollars. Heck, Orion is 16 years in development and still isn't finished.

[cjameshuff]

Remember when SLS was supposed to originally launch? Wasn't it late 2019? I guess they lied.
It's slipped (again) to April 2021 now, and I am confident they will miss that too, so they will have lied... again.

It was 2019 at one point, but originally:
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/science/space/15nasa.html

The first unmanned test flight is scheduled for 2017.

[smartcooky]

Remember when SLS was supposed to originally launch? Wasn't it late 2019? I guess they lied.
It's slipped (again) to April 2021 now, and I am confident they will miss that too, so they will have lied... again.

It was 2019 at one point, but originally:
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/science/space/15nasa.html

The first unmanned test flight is scheduled for 2017.

More lies then?

[cjameshuff]

Remember when SLS was supposed to originally launch? Wasn't it late 2019? I guess they lied.
It's slipped (again) to April 2021 now, and I am confident they will miss that too, so they will have lied... again.

It was 2019 at one point, but originally:
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/science/space/15nasa.html

The first unmanned test flight is scheduled for 2017.

More lies then?

Apparently! I mean, if you go by Dalhousie's definition...though maybe that only applies to Musk.

[raven]

Guys, gals, and non-binary pals, can we hakuna our matatas?
There's several things to dislike about Elon Musk as a person, all too often he's an arrogant, selfish and downright petty prick, and, yes, things are taking longer than originally stated, but this is new territory here in several fronts, this is not surprising?
Right now, I just want to wish the fine people at SpaceX working on this project through this very difficult time the best of my hopes. They are creating innovation and bending iron around a dream. Whatever we may or may not feel about Elon Musk, there's no denying they're doing some very novel work here, and working out the bugs and technical issues is going to take time and effort, often longer than Mr. Musk tends to originally state. Regardless, however long it takes, it's still work worth doing, I say.

[jfb]

As for it not going higher or faster than a commercial airliner, I've got to say "so what"? It's flown higher and faster than the SLS boondoggle. It also flew higher and faster than this thing....

You have completely missed my point.  People are crowing over this being a high altitude test, when it it isn't.  As fpor SLS, I am confident it will achieve orbit a lot sooner than this thing.

After a decade of development SLS/Orion had goddamned better reach orbit first, otherwise heads need to roll.  In the time it’s taken Boeing to figure out how to weld a tank, SpaceX has developed an entirely new engine cycle, designed a new conops based around it, and is flight testing hardware. 

SLS/Orion is currently closer to the pad than SH/SS, but is moving at a slower pace.  There is a chance, small but significant, that at least a prototype SH/SS stack reaches orbit before SLS/Orion. 

[smartcooky]

Guys, gals, and non-binary pals, can we hakuna our matatas?
There's several things to dislike about Elon Musk as a person, all too often he's an arrogant, selfish and downright petty prick, and, yes, things are taking longer than originally stated, but this is new territory here in several fronts, this is not surprising?
Right now, I just want to wish the fine people at SpaceX working on this project through this very difficult time the best of my hopes. They are creating innovation and bending iron around a dream. Whatever we may or may not feel about Elon Musk, there's no denying they're doing some very novel work here, and working out the bugs and technical issues is going to take time and effort, often longer than Mr. Musk tends to originally state. Regardless, however long it takes, it's still work worth doing, I say.

And me.

While I know Musk is intelligent, and driven, I also think he is an egotistical dickhead. However, unlike some, I don't allow that to bias how I feel about what he does. I think Richard Wagner was a nasty, antisemitic piece of gutter trash, but I sure as hell love to listen to his music!!

I'm a rocket-head and space-nerd. I want ALL of them to succeed, SpaceX, Blue Origin,  RocketLab, ULA, NASA, Roscosmos, ESA... all of them. The more the better. I just don't get how ANYONE can call themselves a space enthusiast and not be in absolute awe at what SpaceX are doing right now, from landing 12 story high re-usable boosters on land and on ships at sea, through the Dragon Crew and Cargo capsules, to fast iteration development of the most ambitious rocket ever made, not just a two-stage, heavy lift, interplanetary launch system, but one that is 100% reusable!

[Zakalwe]

Isn't it funny how the ones that cry the loudest about the cult of personality also are the ones to hate Musk the most? It's like Republicans wailing about stolen elections whilst at the same time doing their best to support a man who is actively trying to steal an election. I also wonder why we never here from these people about the personality traits of Bridenstein or Tony Bruno?

Personally I don't give a hot damn about Musk's personality. I can see that he is a petty arsehole, but given that I'm not looking for new friends it doesn't matter a jot to me. I'm also pretty sure that he doesn't give two figs about what I think of him either. I can admire and support his work without getting enraged by his antics. Admire the works, not the man.

I also do not get how disliking the man's personality leads to knocking his company's output? That carries the stench of cancel-culture about it. Again, the ones most likely to wail about cancel-culture are often the very one practising it in regards to Musk. His various companies are all doing remarkable things and are transforming the way the world works. Hell, the changes brought about by just one of his companies would probably be the lifes work of single person, never mind the massive changes brought to our world by SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla and (possibly in the future) Neuralink.

[jfb]

As for it not going higher or faster than a commercial airliner, I've got to say "so what"? It's flown higher and faster than the SLS boondoggle. It also flew higher and faster than this thing....

You have completely missed my point.  People are crowing over this being a high altitude test, when it it isn't.  As for SLS, I am confident it will achieve orbit a lot sooner than this thing.

After a decade and close to $10 billion in development costs it had goddamned well better reach orbit first, or heads need to roll both at NASA and the major contractors (actually, those heads need to roll anyway regardless of who gets to orbit first, SLS has been an embarrassment of a program).  And that's without developing new engines (never mind an engine cycle that's never flown before), without figuring how to re-use the booster, without pioneering construction techniques to reduce cost, without spinning up a manufacturing facility from the ground up. 

With this one test SpaceX have accomplished in half the time far more than SLS will just by making orbit. 

And to further flog the equine carcass, the altitude wasn't the point of the test, the flight profile was the point of the test. 

[smartcooky]

And to further flog the equine carcass, the altitude wasn't the point of the test, the flight profile was the point of the test. 

Indeed, it didn't really matter what altitude it got to, so long as it was high enough so that there was sufficient altitude for the vehicle to

a. pitch over into the "skydiver" position
b. reach terminal velocity during the descent
c. have sufficient flight (glide) time to demonstrate the required aerodynamic control authority of the wing-flaps
d. have sufficient height to carry out the "landing flip" maneuver.